Hello,
There was a recent port that was made to Libreboot for the Dell Optiplex 9020 MT, and I was not properly credited for the work that I did. I made a pull request on Codeberg with my patch (github basically) and labeled it as ‘WIP’. Leah and I were working on this together during that time, and I was told to wait a week, so I did. Time passes and guess what? They closed off my patch and added it themselves a week later with no credit given to me.
I made the .ROM files for the 9020 MT motherboard, I tested them, and they didn’t work until Leah came in and resized the IFD and GBE regions. That was all that they did. Everything else, I did on my own, I added the entries in /vendor/sources for MRC/ME, and added it to lbmk. Leah is now refusing to accept my patch that’s fixed.
I’m not trying to steal all the glory from them, they did help, I just want partial credit for utilizing the port from coreboot gerit. This port was originally made in Coreboot by someone, so work mostly goes to them, but as for adding support for Libreboot, my name is completely left out. I just feel wronged because now they’re saying that I don’t deserve to have my name on this because I was too slow when I was only given a week and was literally told to wait during that time period, so I was kind of manipulated into waiting so that Leah could get the board herself and add it without ever including my name.
I spent a week working on this, and I let them know how significant this was to me, only to have my work shitted on and not properly credited. I’m now banned from IRC and Libreboot for talking about this on Mastadon. I’m just ranting because I feel like my work was just stolen. This is the most powerful desktop supported by Libreboot and now I’m left in the back pages where no one can see my name, which says ‘Provided testing hardware for the 9020 MT’ when I did much more than just testing. I was the one who made this port.
You can sue them if the work is not public domain or 0BSD, MIT no attrib,…
no, because Leah didn’t use any OP’s code. Leah simply rewrote the patch because it wasn’t working. OP is just mad because he was expecting to get it to work and be merged into the project, but Leah did it first.
Or issue a DMCA takedown if they violate OP’s copyright. Much cheaper, much faster.
But very much illegal if OP’s copyrights aren’t being violated.
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Libreboot is actually not a GNU project anymore due to a dispute between Leah Rowe and the FSF.
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Leah has said some dumb stuff but I think this particular separation from the GNU project was the correct decision. The dogmatic no blobs approach wasn’t working, it is better to reduce/minimise the binary blobs and support more devices imo. Don’t agree with their previous actions though.
Ironic
Best comment. Rowe has a lot of toxic history, and it is best to work in a separate lane rather than bolstering something like this.
OP’s testimony should serve as a lesson and a record for other firmware developers.
If what Leah writes is correct, they didn’t steal your work because they created their own patch from scratch.
It seems they wanted to get the 9020 working as quickly as possible, probably because they seem to be selling these machines with Libreboot pre-flashed on their minifree.org website.
But Leah could’ve just fixed whatever didn’t work yet with your patch if they didn’t want to wait for you to get around to fix these apparent issues yourself. That’s how I usually experience how contributions go. Make a pull request, and if something is still blocking it from getting merged, someone (either the PR author (you in this case), a project maintainer (Leah in this case) or whoever) fixed outstanding issues so it can be merged. Both authors usually get credited in this case.
If your code was so messy - and I’m in no way trying to say it was, I didn’t even look at it, but if it was - that redoing the work was easier than fixing your work, then it isn’t actually your contribution that’s in the production codebase after all. So, technically, you’d be correctly credited.
You should let it go either way to be honest. It’s not a good look for either of you. You’re harassing them via IRC and Mastodon (not personally attacking them, but constantly nagging), and Leah eventually writes they’ll ignore you, but then just straight up starts to insult you or your code like it was worthless all along.
I wouldn’t work with them again. Move on.
They told me to wait a week, I waited, and my patch was closed off and they had added it themselves and gave me basically no credit. That’s the main issue, I was told to wait, and I had a functioning patch, but due to Leah’s miscommunication, all the work I did is now meaningless. Why was I expected to submit another patch if I was told to wait?
“let’s just forget what happened and move on” is easy for them to say when they’re the one who benefited from your work.
I personally think that this merely a miscommunication on Leah’s part. If I were you, I would just let it go. From what I understand, Leah remade the patch herself so no work was stolen?
Sure you might feel wronged for being told to wait for a week and that’s natural! But as I stated, this was just a miscommunication in my opinion.
This situation is not worth stressing yourself over. You’re salty over Leah calling your work “shit”? Work/study harder and improve upon yourself. If I were you, this is what I would gather from all this.
Also, Leah saying “Accepy my authority” is pretty ironic for someone in the FOSS community.
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Its pretty easy to remake a patch when a rough draft was previously created by someone else; so I’m not sure the point is valid in stating Leah didn’t steal any work. Can you prove that claim?
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As easy as it is for them to “let it go” it would be just as easy for Leah to add them as a contributor…
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Brother, that’s where the beauty of open source shines, if you wanna continue then fork their code and build upon it, remember tachiyomi or newpipe or vanced situations, they were just forked and continued, yeah, it’s not proper comparison since libreboot is still active but examples was discontinued, well… I have better example then, cataclysm: dda and it’s fork cataclysm: bn
Look, from the exchanges between you and Rowe that Queue posted it seems that you did a lot of voluntary work that unfortunately wasn’t accepted or used. Rowe makes it pretty clear in the Mastodon conversation that your patch didn’t work and they decided they could make their own quicker. You did however get credit for testing.
I do understand the disappointment that hours of work didn’t prove successful but you may need to accept that and move on. I only see poor communication here, on both parts, not appropriating credit for others’ work.
Making wild claims that your work was stolen is… not a good look and just shows an inflated perception of your part in the process, tbh.
It was stolen though, I feel like I was manipulated into waiting just so that they had enough time to do it themselves. I will admit that both sides on communication was bad, but still, that’s work that I did and just to have it taken like that is a bit of a slap in the face. I didn’t just test the board, I added it into lbmk myself independtly. Leah never looked at my patch that worked and refuses to see it. We literally got the .ROM file to work off of my orginial patch after Leah had reconfigured the GBE and IFD region.
No, you say repeatedly that “you feel” it was stolen, “you feel” manipulated — and that’s fair, but would it stand up in court?
I see no evidence for your claims, only your feelings. Nowhere do you show how your unique code is used in the released patch that Rowe wrote. I’m sorry man, as I see it ATM there just isn’t any “there” there.
They made me wait a week, that’s why I didn’t submit it. I already had a functioning patch, but they told me to wait a week so I did, but then guess what? They closed off my patch ‘accidently’ and added it themselves. Why was I expected to submit a patch if they made me wait?
I’m kind of confused. What work did they take? From the communications, it looks like you wrote some code, it wasn’t accepted, and Leah wrote their own implementation, from scratch. Is that not true? Unless they based their work off your code somehow, I don’t see how anything was stolen, potential dickishness from the maintainer aside.
They took the port that I was making for this board, they told me to wait a week, and then closed off my patch and took all the credit. The OG patch that I made was a WIP, we were looking over it to see what was wrong and I noted down what was wrong and fixed it in my next patch, which never got submitted because they told me to wait a week. They recreated the patch that I made from scratch once they got their hands on the board and submitted it.
If they recreated it from scratch though, I don’t see what was stolen. Unless they incorporated your implementation somehow, I can’t see how this rises to stealing. There can be many competing implementations towards the same spec, and using one over the other is not necessarily theft.
They stole the credit for the port though, I already had my own functioning patch but I was told to wait a week twice. So I did, and my patch was closed off ‘accidently’ and they submitted the patch themselves, after making me wait for no reason. This gave them enough time to do it themselves and remove my name from ever being there.
But was the code they wrote substantially identical to yours? Was what they claimed credit for your work just modified, or did they write an entirely new port that only bears resemblance?
If its the latter, you got the exact amount of credit you deserved. I’m not going to argue that their conduct was professional (though, neither was yours), but they don’t have any obligation to credit you further.
You are? I doubt you did this work
I didn’t create the original Coreboot port, Mate Kurki is the main author of this port. I just added support for it to Libreboot utilizing his patch from coreboot gerit.
I understand the frustration get how annoying it is but I also can see it from leah perspective. Honestly I think this is a misunderstanding and I don’t think anyone is trying to be toxic (at least not initially. The your work was shit comment is rude af)
This may not be what you want to hear but I think you should consider whether all this argument and feeling bad is worth the potential upside. What happened was shitty but you shouldn’t let this ruin your day.
I’m not, I just want to publicize this so other people don’t get their work stolen. This was my first port, and just to have it taken from me like that, is just unethical. I mean, I’m not denying that you have the right to do that in FOSS, I’m really just showing people what Leah does to people who object to take that kind of shit from them.
I’d be pissed too. Not really anything I can do but let me know if I can help.
Reading Leah’s comments, you’ve been credited for what you did, testing. Your patch didn’t work, she didn’t use it and wrote a solution herself.
Nothing was stolen because she didn’t use your patch.
The patch was a WIP, we were going over it to see what was wrong, which I fixed in my next patch. Leah had ‘accidently’ closed off my patch and added it themselves. I was told to wait, hence why I didn’t submit another patch.
okay, still, she didn’t steal anything from you. She didn’t use your patch, that’s all that happened. That’s not stealing.
My credit was stolen though, they closed off my patch after telling me to wait and they’re basically I don’t deserve any credit because I took too long, when the reality is that they’re the ones who kept me waiting.
There are countless patches that are never merged for one reason or another, sometimes just because the maintainer doesn’t like the implementation even if it works, so they implement it themselves.
If no code was used, no credit is necessary. She did credit you for testing, which a lot of projects don’t bother crediting. So take that and continue with your life.
I literally had a patch that was functioning but again, I was told to wait so why was I expected to submit the patch during that time? I was waiting for Leah but they held me up twice, and then closed off my patch for ‘being too slow’ when in fact, they’re the ones who told me to wait.
I can understand a miscommunication from their part, but the latter treatment on Mastodon is not an attitude that a large FOSS project should have towards another person.
While I won’t pretend that I was ever going to contribute to Libreboot, if a project I loved treated contributors this way, at best I would never contribute, and at worst seriously reconsider using said project. Leah absolutely needs to apologise for this, and Libreboot needs to update its community standards.
Having had my work appropriated by others before, I can feel you. I’d like to hope that this is all a big misunderstanding, but that would be naive of me. Hopefully this doesn’t stop you from contributing to other things in the future.
Since the content on codeburg is user owned and managed I’m afraid you don’t have much recourse there.
Just know that you are heard.
Some maintainers on large open source projects really think credit is not a big deal and sometimes apply the changes sent to them as their own commit if they think it’s not too significant. I think this is wrong though. Even small contribution should be properly attributed or it’ll discourage future participation.
I just feel wronged because now they’re saying that I don’t deserve to have my name on this because I was too slow when I was only given a week and was literally told to wait during that time period.
This is very concerning if true.
I was literally given one week:
Yeah, looks like she think your work is not a big deal and aren’t worth the fuzz about it. Sadly this attitude is pretty common. The maintainer didn’t think they do anything wrong (it’s just a small config!), not realizing the work they think was easy and not worth the credit might not actually that easy for new contributors and perhaps warrant some credit or acknowledgement to encourage future contributions.
Yikes.
You deserve credit for work you did do, it’s especially important yet all too easy to overlook in the FOSS space.
Sorry to hear this happened to you.
